Here We Go Again
You’ll prep 25+ clients for the holidays. Who’s prepping you?
A 5-week holiday support group for therapists with complicated families
Live Virtual Support Group | Wednesdays 2:00-3:00 PM ET | Nov 11 - Dec 16 (no group Nov 25) + January bonus
You’ll spend the next two months helping clients prepare for the same get-togethers, phone calls, and family group texts you’ll be dealing with yourself. But when you try to talk about your own holiday family stressors with your friends, you hear some version of “You’re the therapist, you should know what to do.” Or “Just go no contact.” Or “Be the bigger person and do it for your family.” Offering support to so many others but not receiving it in return is enough to make any therapist want to shut down.
This group is a place where you don’t have to be the therapist.
Registration required here.
Why “Here We Go Again”
Every year the holidays come back around, and so does the family stuff. Some years it feels easier, and some years it feels harder. But when complicated family is involved, “here we go again” is a pretty natural thing to say.
Why this group
We know we should all probably have our own therapist, but plenty of us don’t. Sometimes it’s the cost, sometimes it’s finding someone we click with, and sometimes we get tired of sitting with a therapist who keeps saying “well, you know this stuff.” Some of us do have a therapist, but our sessions are focused on other goals, and the holiday family stuff doesn’t come up (or we don’t bring it up).
Even as therapists, we have a lot of our own "stuff" come up during the holiday season. Imposter syndrome is already common in this field, and admitting that our own family dynamics aren’t sorted out can increase it. So a lot of us don’t admit the holidays are hard, even to ourselves.
If you’re estranged from some of your family, there can be guilt and shame about not figuring it out in your own relationships while you help clients with theirs. If you’re still in contact, there can be guilt about not setting firmer boundaries, not communicating your needs, or not even being sure what your needs are. Many of us are strongly values and justice oriented, so we can feel a real duty to stay engaged with family, even when it’s hard.
When we reach out to friends or partners, their love and their wish to protect us can get in the way of just listening. A partner gets frustrated, or babies us, or wonders why we don’t just walk away. Or we stop sharing with them so we don’t make their experience any harder. And if we’re bringing a partner or kids around our family, we can feel torn between the family that raised us and the family we chose or built.
Then there’s the family therapist role. The holidays come with the expectation that you’ll be everyone’s therapist. There could be joy in that, because you like to help and your family values what you do, but it’s still exhausting. Or it may be the opposite, with a family that doesn’t understand what you do all day and may even belittle the work you do.
All of this happens while you’re prepping clients for their own holiday stress, keeping up with a full caseload, and rushing through your own holiday prep (which can be overwhelming on its own).
Your family doesn’t live in isolation
Every family runs into the larger world, and right now that includes a lot of division, fear, and insecurity around the economy, politics, and social justice. That can make emotions run higher and conflict louder. It can all be tinder for a fire you are just trying to avoid.
As therapists, we’re already working through this with clients in session, all week long. So working through it again with family can feel like too much. Or it can feel harder in a different way, because we see the complexity in people and spend our days in the gray, a skill our family members may not have.
The ADHD lens
I specialize in ADHD, so I’ll bring that perspective into every session, whether or not you have ADHD yourself. With ADHD, things can easily be out of sight and out of mind. Time is fleeting, and planning and organizing can suffer. So we may not take the time ahead of the holidays (or after them) to look at what we’re asking of ourselves and how we’ll plan for and care for ourselves.
Emotions can feel insurmountable. Our nervous systems can get zapped more easily. And after a day of masking while doing therapy, there might not be much left to give family, even when they expect it. If others in your family have ADHD, or think ADHD is a hoax, either one can affect whether your needs get met.
What you get
You cognitively know a lot of the tools. This group gives you the support to think through how those tools may work for you.
Time with other therapists who get it, where nobody needs you to explain why “just go no contact” or “set better boundaries” may not work for you.
A place to say the things you don’t say to your partner, your friends, or even your own therapist, and be heard instead of fixed.
Time set aside each week to look at what this season is asking of you, before you’re fully in it.
Hearing other therapists say what you’ve been thinking, which makes it a lot harder to believe you’re the only one who hasn’t figured this out.
Room for the gray. You can stay in a hard family relationship without having it resolved by December.
A January debrief to decompress once it’s all over.
What we’ll talk about
Each session starts from something therapists hear.
Nov 11, “You’re the therapist. You should know what to do.” Group agreements, who supports the person supporting everyone else, and admitting this is hard.
Nov 18, “Just go no contact.” Staying, stepping back, the guilt that can come with either one, and what “just” leaves out.
No group Nov 25.
Dec 2, “Can you talk to your brother?” A Thanksgiving debrief, and what it’s like to be the family therapist, or the one whose work gets dismissed.
Dec 9, “Be the bigger person.” Partners, friends, kids, and the family you built or chose.
Dec 16, “Why do you even go?” Living in the gray, and what you want to carry into the rest of the season.
Bonus Jan 6, “So how were the holidays?” A debrief once the dust settles. RSVP only.
Registration required here.
How it runs
This is a small group for therapists, run by a therapist. Once the group is full, I’ll start a waitlist. You come as a person, not as the clinician in the room.
Each session has a short check-in, a few minutes of framing from me, open discussion, and one closing question to take with you. Our group agreements include confidentiality, no debating politics, and no treating each other. We share and we listen.
It’s built with ADHD and easily overstimulated folks in mind. You get the agenda ahead of time, and you can opt in or out of any prompt. Cameras and audio stay on so we can see and hear each other, and stepping away briefly is fine.
Who it’s for
Therapists located in GA, TN, SC, or FL for every session. It’s especially for therapists who don’t have a regular therapist, or whose therapy is focused on other goals. If you’re in crisis or need more support than a weekly group can give, reach out and we’ll figure out a better fit.
Pricing
Pick the price that fits where you are right now. Your price covers all 5 sessions plus the January bonus, paid in full at registration.
Early bird through Friday, October 30
$250: Supporting Rate. Choose this if you’re able; it helps keep the group accessible for therapists with tighter finances.
$200: Standard Rate. This covers the group and my time.
$150: Reduced Rate. Choose this if money’s tight right now.
After October 30: $275 / $225 / $175
Registration closes Wednesday, November 4.
Facilitated by Randi Williams, LPC, CPSC (learn more here)